Terms will be announced later; doesn’t get job back
By Mike Donoghue, Senior Correspondent
The longtime Woodstock Union High School snowboard coach, who says he was illegally fired because he joined in a brief conversation by two team members about a transgender student competing for an opposing school, has reached an out-of-court settlement.
Veteran coach David J. Bloch, who founded the school snowboarding program in 2011, has maintained he was unlawfully fired in February 2023, and that both his First Amendment and due process rights were violated by School Superintendent Sherry Sousa, the Windsor Central Supervisory Union Board and others.
Several people involved in the lawsuit said this week they were unable to provide the exact amount of the settlement until it was signed and delivered. It did sound like Bloch will not be getting his $4,439 seasonal job back.
Burlington lawyer Pietro Lynn, who helps represent Sousa and the school board, did acknowledge that the proposed payment to Bloch “was a fraction of the cost of defending the claims.”
Lynn confirmed that once the payment is made, the entire case will go away, including the recent appeal by Bloch to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City.
Bloch has appealed the initial findings of Federal Judge Christina Reiss in Burlington, who rejected in December the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction seeking his reinstatement. Reiss said in a 51-page decision that Bloch failed to show he faced immediate irreparable harm. She also ruled the preliminary injunction was unwarranted, but said in the Dec. 28 ruling that certain parts of Bloch’s lawsuit could proceed in a regular timeline.
However, the parties asked the federal court Tuesday afternoon to halt the case and all the pending deadlines “while the parties execute their settlement agreement.” They noted a proposed settlement had been reached with help from an early neutral evaluator, Gregory S. Clayton of Montpelier and Camden, Maine.
Clayton, in his mediation report to the federal court, wrote that a full settlement was reached after meeting with the parties from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 25.
Douglas O’Donnell of the Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust attended the session, and he was among the people listed as having settlement authority for the defendants. Records show Sousa and the school board did not attend the mediation session — the first effort to settle the case outside court.
“The parties have agreed on settlement terms and expect to execute a settlement agreement soon, which will result in the stipulated dismissal of this case,” according to a filing Tuesday afternoon by lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Bloch.
Attempts to reach Bloch were unsuccessful. Attorney Mathew W. Hoffman of the Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of Bloch, said it was an important victory.
“Public schools can’t fire employees for respectful speech on a matter of public concern,” Hoffman said.
“Dave, like every other person, is protected under the First Amendment to respectfully share his personal beliefs, and the Vermont Agency of Education even acknowledged that Dave did not violate policy or Vermont law simply by sharing his perspective. As a result of Dave’s courage in filing suit, the truth is clear — everyone has the right to express his or her opinion, especially on matters of public concern.”
Assistant Attorney General Jaime Kraybill, who is assigned to the AOE and represented it at the September hearing, said later she was unable to offer comments on the case.
Attempts to reach Assistant Attorney General Kate Gallagher, who also is assigned to the case, could not be reached for comment before deadline.
The motion said all parties agreed to the proposed stay for all deadlines in the case.
“Thus, good cause exists for the Court to issue a stay of all case deadlines pending execution of the settlement agreement and dismissal of this case,” the filing said.
Another defendant, Jay Nichols, executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association, also acknowledged the settlement, but said he was precluded from discussing it this week. Nichols and the VPA had maintained they had nothing to do with the firing and didn’t even know Bloch. Bloch has maintained VPA policies were used to force him out.
Also named as a defendant was Heather Bouchey, interim secretary of education for Vermont, but attempts to reach her lawyers about the settlement were unsuccessful.
Burlington lawyer Sean M. Toohey, who helped Lynn defend Sousa and the school district, also said he was unable to comment on the terms of the settlement until they had been reduced to writing and signed off by all parties.
The Woodstock teams were at a snowboarding meet at Jay Peak in February 2023 when Hartford High School had a transgender student, competing with the girls, according to Bloch’s lawsuit.
Two Woodstock Union student-athletes — a boy and a girl — were having a private conversation in the lodge about the situation during a break in the competition. Bloch, who overheard part of the chat, said he joined the private conversation briefly and mentioned that males have a physical advantage over females in sports.
It was unclear how Hartford High, whose team traveled on the same bus as Woodstock, heard about the conversation, but it filed a hearsay complaint that night, records show. The Woodstock High School assistant principal and athletic director did a brief investigation the following morning. By early afternoon, Sousa fired Bloch, who founded the snowboard program in 2011.
Nichols and Bouchey have said they had nothing to do with his firing — or even his hiring.
Bloch maintained in his lawsuit that he was engaged in Constitutionally protected speech and that school officials never provided him his rights, including how to appeal the dismissal, nor gave him a copy of the investigative report.
Sousa has told the Vermont Standard the December ruling by Reiss “demonstrates that our decision to demand that school employees behave in a way that is consistent with a supportive, respectful, and inclusive learning environment is both the right thing to do and consistent with the law.”
Bloch’s lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom noted the coach was never told he had the right to a lawyer, a right to present witnesses and the right to appeal his dismissal. Bloch said he was never provided a copy of the investigative report that Sousa promised him when she fired him. As it turned out there was never a written report, but rather just notes provided by the athletic director and assistant principal.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is helping represent Bloch, is a national group that successfully sued Randolph Union school officials in another case involving a transgender student in October 2022.